British Greenpeace activists are a threat to India's economic development, according to an intelligence report

India's intelligence agency has targeted an adviser to Prince Charles and British activists in a campaign against Greenpeace and other foreign groups it claims are a threat to its economy.

The Indian government last week banned direct foreign funding of local campaign groups, after a report by its Intelligence Bureau warned that organisations funded by Greenpeace and other international institutions were growing throughout the country and "spawning" mass movements which now pose a "significant threat to national economic security."

The decision was revealed after the Indian government indicated it was ready to further exploit its large coal reserves and asserted its right to increase carbon emissions for economic development. Prakash Javadekar, the environment minister, said India had a "right to grow" and that it could not address climate change until it had eradicated poverty.

According to the Intelligence Bureau report, Greenpeace and other environmentalist groups had stalled the development of new coal mines, challenged its plans for more coal-fired power stations, and delayed other vital infrastructure projects in campaigns which had reduced India's GDP growth by two to three per cent. Much of their work, it said, is funded by the US-based Centre for Media and Democracy, which the report described as a Democratic Party-oriented group supported by liberals like George Soros and "multiple far-left foundations".

The report, which was leaked last week, singled out Dr Vandana Shiva, an Indian scientist and adviser to Prince Charles on sustainable agriculture.

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She has been his long-term collaborator on organic farming since they participated in the Reith Lectures in 2000. He is said to find her inspiring and keeps a bust of her at his Highgrove home. During his visit to India in November last year, the prince visited her organic farm in Dehra Dun to highlight her campaign against the use of genetically-modified seeds.

Dr Shiva has blamed the high cost of GM cotton seeds for the suicides of 284,000 heavily indebted farmers since 1995.

According to the Intelligence Bureau report, "six NGOs, including Greenpeace, are at the forefront of anti-GMO activism in India" and the movement "was initiated in 2003 by Vandana Shiva". It also emphasises her role as a consultant to Greenpeace Australia and her group, Navdanya, as a recipient of foreign donations. Her campaign was highlighted along with other movements blamed for "anti-developmental activities" which included Greenpeace plans for "crop circle" protests against the cultivation of genetically-modified soya and corn. The group had planned to capture the demonstrations on Google Earth, the report said.

The report named four British environmentalists and cyber-experts among 12 foreign activists it said were planning to organise protests against coal fired power stations and had been involved in upgrading Greenpeace India's computer security systems. It discussed the work of Matt Philips, a British energy analyst and cited a claim by Pakistan's former intelligence chief that his previous employer, the charity Save the Children, was linked to the American CIA spy agency.

Two other British activists, Fiona Stewart and Emma Gibson, had visited Greenpeace's headquarters in Bangalore in January an "upgraded its communications systems and installed sophisticated and encrypted software in its servers and computers", the report said.

Dr Vandana Shiva said India's Intelligence Bureau's report was an "attack on civil society" which she said she would defend.

She had decided to campaign against the introduction of genetically-modified seeds into India in 1987 after she attended a conference at which agricultural chemicals industry representatives said they would "take patents on seeds so they could collect royalties from every farmer, in every season, in every country of the world", she said in the Asian Age newspaper.

Her court action against the genetically-modified seed company Monsanto delayed its plans to cultivate Bt Cotton in India for four years. Her NGO Navdanya has since collected a vast seed bank to help farmers cultivate low cost organic crops and avoid the debts she believes have been caused by the costs of using genetically-modified seeds.

The report was "biased" in favour of foreign companies she blames for farmers' debts and suicides, she said.

"They're not allergic to foreign funding for defence or railways but only foreign funding to build civil society", she said.

Greenpeace India said the report was a "malicious" attempt to speed up environmental clearances for coal and nuclear power projects and a "concerted effort by parties with a vested interest to ensure elimination of any opposition", said its India director Samit Aich.

India was the world's fastest growing carbon gas emitter in 2012 but has rejected calls to reduce them as unfair. Its ministers say western economies were to blame for polluting the Earth's atmosphere during their industrialisation and that India's own development cannot be held back to meet new emission targets.